Practical Application: Vocation and Calling
For my practical application project I decided to do choose the mentoring option. This seemed like the obvious choice for me, as I have already built a mentor-mentee relationship with one of my good friends, Micaela, who has also been discipling me and two other girls since last semester. Micaela and I had already established a close relationship, and she had already provided me with so much revelation and wisdom just by doing life together for all of freshman year. She is a sophomore here at Baylor and apart from our previously established relationship, I knew she would be a good mentor for this project because I relate to her in many ways and she is also on a business track without a clear idea of what she wants to do after graduation, just like me. Apart from spending time together in lifegroup and discipleship, we were able to meet one on one for this project and just talk about life and vocation and calling and how we see the Lord working in our lives. This paper is a reflection on conversations Micaela and what I have learned in class as well as a reflection on my freshman year as a whole.
Prior to taking Leadership 2301 I thought I had an understanding of vocation and calling, yet at the same time, they were ideas that I had a hard time putting into words. I understood that vocation had to do with more than just what your job was, and I knew that calling had to do with God’s purpose for your life, but I struggled to understand what that meant for me and my life. I’ve never been the person to have my whole life planned out since childhood. I’ve never dreamed of being a doctor or a lawyer or president of the United States. This is something that has both frustrated me and provided me with peace. It is frustrating because the planner in me wants to know for sure that I am on the right track; that I am majoring in the right thing, doing the right things to get there, and meeting the right people along the way. Yet at the same time, my uncertainty is reassuring in the fact that I have time to figure everything out as I go, to focus on the things that interest me, and to test out the water. But that being said, I have also learned that much if not all of this, my vocational calling, my future, and my purpose, is completely out of my hands.
Chapter one of Courage and Calling expresses the biblical idea of vocation to be “about being raised from the dead, made alive to the reality that we do not merely exist, but are called forth to a divine purpose”. I like this definition of vocation because it presents the idea that our calling doesn’t come from ourselves and what we think we want for our life, but that we were created by a God who set into each of our lives a unique purpose. The cool thing too, is that Psalm 20:4 tells us that God grants us the desires of our hearts. He doesn’t just set in motion a plan for our life that will be difficult and unenjoyable, but He his plan lines us with the deepest desires of our hearts. He is the one who planted those desires and passions in ourselves, and he allows us to experiences His love and joy in aligning our callings with things that we have a love for. This is something that Micaela and I were able to talk about, and it brought new and hopeful insight into how I can think about my life and vocation.
She explained how in her own life she has a desire to watch others develop their identity in Christ as well as see how He is developing her into the person she is. Reflecting on this she believes her calling is to be a developer, of people, of ideas, and of places. This in itself was encouraging because it helped me in understanding that our calling is more than being called to be a doctor or a lawyer or anything like that. But our calling is something that we can live out in every aspect of our life, both in the office and out. I believe that the same calling we feel like applies to our jobs can also be applied to the way we interact with our families and friends and even strangers. God is using Micaela to develop, encourage, and mentor everyone she comes in contact with, and is similarly using that same developmental desire to point her towards an entrepreneurial career in public relations where she will be able to develop new ideas, or products, all while continuing to develop relationships rooted in the Christ love that she emulates.
Reflecting on this I still do not have an exact word to express as my calling, but I have a better understanding of how my calling plays out in my life. I know that right now my calling is to be a student and invest myself here in Waco and at Baylor. But I also know that the Lord is working in my time here, and I believe that at some point I will be able to look back at my life and be able to recognize where and how my calling had been played out in the different parts of my life.
As my freshman year of college draws to a close I reflect on all that I have learned. Most of which was not learned in a classroom at all. As cliché as it sounds I have learned more about myself than I even thought possible. I know recognize that I am far more dependent on people that I thought. I have learned that I don’t just like people but that I really like getting to know people on a deep and real level. I like living life with people and being with them in the up and the downs. I can see this in the friendships I have made over the last two semesters. I guess its because living apart from my family and everything I had ever know, but it has been so much easier for me to open up to people since I have been in college. I don’t just want to make friends I have fun with anymore, I want to make friends that I can have fun with but also be serious with and ultimately just walk through life with, and I am lucky enough to have found that in more than one person at Baylor.
I trust that God will open the right doors at the right time, and ultimately I will find myself living out my calling. For know though, I am just trying to be faithful and intentional about where I am in my life at the moment. I am learning to be purposeful with and find joy in school even when it gets hard, and how to be purposeful with the friendships that I am developing. For know that is all I can do and that’s enough for me. As I take more classes and attain more life experience, I believe I will begin to be drawn more and more towards my specific calling. That may be something in the business world, or it may be something the complete opposite, but I know that wherever I end up the things that will really matter will be me living my life to Christ and doing so with people who do the same.
Author: meredith_salley
This I Believe Statement.
This I believe: that everyone has a desire to be known.
Reflection on Leadership 1301
Prior to taking LDS 1301 with Professor Freed I had taken two student leadership classes in high school, been part of the student leadership committee at my church, and considered myself to be a leader. And while I still hold that to be true, I now know so much more about what it means to be a leader. I’ve learned so much about the different types of leaders and how the world’s view of leaders have changed over time. I’ve learned why certain leadership approaches work better in certain situations better than others, and I’ve learned more about myself as a leader throughout the course of this class. I will be able to apply what I have learned in this class throughout the rest of my life. It will help me to better understand the relationships between leaders and their subordinates in situations when I am in a leadership position as well as in situations when I am being lead by someone else. If I had to summarize the most influential take aways from this class in three main points the first one would be leadership is more than just guiding a group from point A to point B. A true leaders is more than the person to which others follow, but someone who values relationship with others, values ethical decision making, and encourages others to do the same. A true leader brings out the best qualities of those around him or her and uses them to achieve a common goal. The second take-away that I value from this class is the broad spectrum of types of leaders and leadership approaches. This helps me to remember that we are all leaders, because someone who is great in one area may not be best suited to lead others in another area. Instead, we can learn to develop our own personal leadership philosophies and apply them to our every day lives. The third main point that I will take away from this course is the importance of leading authentically. To me this means developing and figuring out who we are as individuals and as leaders and sticking to it. It means to stay true to yourself and to the things you value and always leading in an ethical manner. It also means developing an authentic leader-subordinate relationship, and understanding that just as much as subordinates learn from their leaders, leaders also learn from their subordinates. It is these three take-aways and more that I will continue to instill into my everyday life and into my own personal identity as a leader.
Leadership, Power, & Identity
As the famous spiderman line says, “with great power comes great responsibility”. When people are put into positions of power, they are also put into positions of leadership. However, having significant power or authority over something does not necessarily make someone a good leader. Being a good leader means using the influence and power you have for the greater good of a group of people or project and to achieve the common goal in the best and most effective means possible. This means putting the needs of others before yourself and using your power to make a difference and do good. This is true even when doing good is the hardest thing to do. Being a leader puts one in a position where others look up to them and turn to them in hard times. If a leader or someone in power does not do the right thing in tough times, then how could we expect anyone else to ever to the right thing in similar situations. We must be careful with who we give power, as no matter the situation people will turn to those with power to be lead by example. Every leader has power, but not every one with power is a true leader. By carefully considering who we place in leadership positions, and by holding true to our values and maintaining a code of ethics as leaders ourselves we can assure that those in power do not abuse it. This is important because leadership is about more than having power, its about earning trust, inspiring others, and leading by example. It is this type of leader that I strive to be and hope to be identified as.
“It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.” – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
The Style Approach to Leadership
This year in LDS 1301 we learned about and did a project about the style approach to leadership. This leadership theory assesses leadership in terms of leader task and relationship behavior. It concludes that what leaders do has impacts both on achieving their task but also on the relationship between them and their subordinates. In this style of leadership, there are five main types of leaders based on their task and relationship behaviors. These include country club managers, team managers, middle of the road managers, impoverished managers, and authority-compliance managers. Each other these types of leaders have a varying focus on a combination of task and relational actions. The ideal style to encompass is that of team management, which balances a high concern for leader-subordinate relations as well as a high concern for achieving the task at hand. I think that having this style of leadership approach would be beneficial in almost every situation, as it seems to always be important to have a concern for others as well as a concern for getting your job done. Team management is a healthy balance of both. Below is a diagram outlining the five different types of leadership according to the style approach to leadership.
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Situational Approach Leadership Theory
The situational approach to leadership is one of the more popular approaches to leadership, and is one that I personally relate to. That is because, just as the situations we are in are constantly changing, the leadership approaches we must take are also constantly changing. This style of leadership is based on the idea that different situations call for different kinds of leadership, something that I hold to be completely true. We must evaluate ourselves, the situation, and our subordinates before we can decide how to go about achieving a goal and being the best leader we can be. In matching our leadership styles to the competence and commitment of our subordinates, we are best able to achieve our end goal. We do so by balancing both a directive and supportive role of leadership applied correctly to a given situation. We then match these leadership styles to the development level of the people we aim to lead. All of these is represented in the situational leadership model. Finding the best combination of directive and supportive leadership to match the competence of subordinates is crucial to achieving a goal in the most effective way possible. Bellow is the leadership model that displays the relationship between the two aspects of this leadership theory.
Skills Approach Leadership Theory
The skills approach to leadership focuses on the belief that certain abilities, knowledge, and skills that can be learned or developed are important to leadership. This theory evaluates the success of a leader on the basis of what they can accomplish. By focusing on what they can do instead of who they are, this concept allows for leadership to be available to everyone instead of a select few with the right leadership traits. The three main skills needed for leadership, according to this theory, are technical, human, and conceptual. Different types of leaders use these three skill sets in different ways to accomplish their goals. In the model for this leadership style, a leader’s attributes, personality, and cognitive abilities influence their acquired skills and knowledge which they use to problem solve and achieve a goal. The leader’s individual attributes and skills are influenced by their past career experiences, while their attributes, skills, and performances are all influenced by environmental factors outside the control of the leader. Together this all makes up the skills model of leadership. I think that this is an important and useful leadership theory. While some people naturally have more leadership qualities than others, I believe that everyone has the potential to be a leader and it is important for everyone to obtain leadership skills and understand how to best use them. This is important because no matter how much or how little of a natural leader someone is, everyone will be placed in a leadership role at some point in their life. This theory helps people how to use their personal attributes along with problem solving, social judgment skills, and knowledge to achieve or solve any problems that come their way.
Below is the skills model associated with the skills approach to leadership.
Academy Lecture: Jessica Cox
An overwhelming theme in Jessica Cox’s message was to not let your own fear hold you back from doing what you want to do. She certainly did not let any fear associated with her disability hold her back from doing and achieving what she wanted to. Cox spoke about being persistent with yourself when going after something you want, saying “desire is 80% of success”. When you have a desire to do or be something and work continuously for it you can overcome all fear and doubt. I can relate this to mylife, because oftentimes I feel like I could accomplish so much more if I wasn’t fearful of failure, of disappointing others, or of the what-ifs involved. It is this fearful thinking that holds us back so much more than anything else. We must overcome our fears so that we can build up fearless leaders who look beyond the challenges and setbacks we face everyday. It is important for leaders to be persistent and focus on the main desires of a group, because otherwise it would be way to easy for a group to succumb to their difficulties and never make it to the end goal. Leaders must be able to see past these difficulties so that those they are leading can learn to see past them as well. The less time we spend focusing on the difficulties in our lives, the less prevalent they will become, and soon we won’t even see them as things important enough to hold us back from achieving our goals. This is the mindset that I believe leader, as well as everyone else, should strive to have. If we don’t have our own doubt and fear holding us back then we really don’t have anything holding us back at all. By believing in our own abilities, focusing on the positive, and overcoming our fears we can achieve whatever is set before us and encourage others in doing the same.
Academy Lecture: Colleen Coffey
I had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Colleen Coffey on the subject of mental health. I especially enjoyed this lecture because in addition to providing us with important and valuable information, Dr. Coffey also shared her personal story. She spoke as if she was having a casual conversation with us, and used language that helped her relate to the room full of college students. Her story helped me to understand that mental disorders are a wide variety of different things, from short-term challenges all the way to diagnosable and prolonged disorders. It opened my eyes to the fact that people don’t have mental disorders because they are crazy, but people experience mental disordered because we are human. Like Dr. Coffey said, “we all will deal with emotional difficulty to some degree in our lifetime”. These difficulties will look and be different for everyone, but as a friend and as a leader the best response we can have to others experiencing emotional difficulties is to apply the contact theory. This means breaking down walls and barriers to meet with others in authentic communication and relationship. We can do this by opening ourselves to others so that they will do the same, creating an open dialogue about the difficulties we are facing, and sharing stories with each other. We all experience difficulties, but we can find comfort, healing, and peace in taking the time to open ourselves to the help of others and also presenting ourselves in way to help others as well. We all desire to be known, to have someone who cares about us and to be connected to other people. There is a direct relation to having this sense of belonging and to how we feel about things as well as to our mental health. Having that primitive need for community met improves how we feel about ourselves as well as provides us with a group of people to turn to when going through a difficult time. As servant leaders, we are called to put the needs of others first, to build them up, and to foster that sense of belonging. The simplest way we can do this is by loving one another without condition and judgment, just as we desire to be loved the same way.
My leadership development timeline
Leadership Identity Development Timeline
This leadership identity development timeline represents the leadership positions that I have held throughout my life that have shaped me into the leader that I am today.